Bitcoin tumbled through the key $70,000 level on Thursday as a slide in the world's largest cryptocurrency showed no signs of stopping.

Bitcoin fell by as much as 3.8 per cent to a low of $69,858, its weakest since November 2024, when Republican Donald Trump won the US presidential election, having signalled his intention to support crypto on the campaign trail.

Bitcoin has already fallen nearly 8 per cent for the week, taking its losses for the year so far to nearly 20 per cent. Ether, which was down nearly 2 per cent at $2,090, is down close to 30 per cent this year.

Markets 'fear a hawk' with warsh

The latest rout in cryptocurrencies, which has come hard and fast, was triggered, analysts say, by the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chair, due to expectations he could shrink the Fed's balance sheet.

Cryptocurrencies have widely been regarded as beneficiaries of a large balance sheet, having tended to rally while the Fed greased money markets with liquidity - a support for speculative assets.

"The market fears a hawk with him," said Manuel Villegas Franceschi from the next generation research team at Julius Baer. "A smaller balance sheet is not going to provide any tailwinds for crypto."

The global crypto market has lost nearly $1.9 trillion in value since hitting a peak of $4.379 trillion in early October, based on data from CoinGecko, with some $800 billion wiped out in the last month alone.

To be sure, cryptocurrencies have struggled for months since a record crash last October sent bitcoin tumbling from a peak as leveraged positions got washed out.

That has left investors less keen on digital assets and sentiment towards the industry fragile.

"We believe this broader decline is mainly driven by massive withdrawals from institutional ETFs. These funds have seen billions of dollars flow out each month since the Oct 2025 downturn," Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note to clients.

They added that US spot bitcoin ETFs witnessed outflows of more than $3 billion in January, following outflows of about $2 billion and $7 billion in December and November respectively.

"This steady selling in our view signals that traditional investors are losing interest, and overall pessimism about crypto is growing," the analysts said.

Broader issues in tech sector

Bitcoin's fortunes have been tied to the broader tech sector for some time. The price tended to rise, particularly on the back of investor enthusiasm over artificial intelligence.

This week's rout in global software stocks has accelerated the slide in the value of bitcoin, ether and other tokens.

Market watchers are starting to question if this decline marks the start of a steeper correction.

"Concerns are being raised around the crypto miners and whether we could be looking at forced liquidations if prices continue to fall, which could lead to a vicious cycle," Jefferies strategist Mohit Kumar said in a note.

"Our view on crypto has always been that it should be never more than a very small portion of the overall portfolio. However, it is also an asset class that is heavily owned, particularly by retail investors, and hence adds to the overall market risk."